


Always Meet Your Heroes

by Aurae



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Backstory, Exchange Assignment, F/M, First Meetings, Gen, Missions Gone Wrong, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Smuggling, X-Ship 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22483516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurae/pseuds/Aurae
Summary: The Kijimi Spice Runners are attacked and boarded while on a smuggling run. The attack—and the identity of the attacker—compels Poe to make a decision about his future.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20
Collections: X-Ship - The Crossover Relationship Exchange 2019





	Always Meet Your Heroes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



Never meet your heroes.

It was one of Zorii’s favorite lines, and she especially liked using it whenever he started spouting off yet again about the heroes of the Galactic Civil War. Thing was, his parents, who’d fought with the Rebellion themselves, had raised him in the shadow of the former Rebel Alliance base on Yavin 4 and fed him on a steady diet of gapa root and war stories. This meant that, most of the time, he didn’t even realize he was reciting those old stories until the fact was pointed out to him.

Most often most pointedly. “Poe Dameron,” Zorii would say, “I thought you joined up with us because you wanted to _get away_ from the past. That isn’t going to work if you insist upon taking the past with you wherever you go. So stop, okay? Just stop talking.”

She made it sound easier than it was. Poe was a big talker, after all. But he did make a genuine effort to focus on the work and spare his colleagues unnecessary annoyance. He even thought he’d gotten better at it over the years. He figured that, given a few more years, he’d be one of the Kijimi Spice Runners through and through and over the past for good.

Or, rather, Poe _had_ figured that. Then he met _her_ , and everything changed.

Again.

***

“Take evasive action!” Zorii yelled into the shipboard comlink.

Poe was already way ahead of her, and this was why he knew it was already way too late. He’d never seen anyone fly like _that_. It was like the enemy ship’s pilot could anticipate his every move a half-second before he made it, and now, they were about to be forcibly boarded.

“Too late! I dunno what’s gonna come out of that ship, two men or twenty, but we need to be ready to fight!” Poe shouted back, slamming his palms in frustration against the navicomputer console and rising from the pilot seat. He checked his side holster—yep, his trusty blaster at the ready—and exited the cockpit at a run.

“Defensive positions! Defensive positions!” Zorii yelled over and over. She didn’t need to get more specific; everyone knew the drill. “Protect the cargo at all costs!”

Poe drew his blaster, braced himself against the curved durasteel wall of the corridor leading to the emergency loading hatch, and waited. Emergency klaxons wailed. Their opponents were attempting to pry the hatch open from the outside, and they seemed about to succeed. It was going to be a fight, quite possibly long and difficult and deadly. Poe counted down silently in his head: shooting to begin in five…four…three…two… _one_ …

Afterwards, he couldn’t quite recall how long it took, but he was preeetty certain the battle was over before he got to _zero_. A lone Togruta female had torn through with the grace and speed of a plains grazil, disarming and neutralizing the entire team faster than Poe’s brain could compute.

Although Poe had never laid eyes on this particular Togruta before, he knew exactly who she was. The twin white-bladed lightsabers she wielded were unmistakable. Ahsoka Tano. She’d been one of Poe’s childhood favorites from his parents’ war stories, and now, here she was, in the flesh!

“If you surrender your cargo to me, and I will let you go in peace,” Tano said. Her voice was calm and strong. Self-assured. Poe felt impressed in spite of himself.

An uncomfortable silence reigned among his colleagues. This was bad, they knew. Finally, Zorii spoke. “Never!” she hissed, using one hand to slash diagonally through the air between her and Tano, a sharp negating motion to break off negotiation. “If we don’t finish this job, we might as well be dead. So why don’t you just kill us and be done with—”

“Hey, uhh, wait a minute,” Poe interrupted. All eyes turned toward him. “I mean, well. If we have to die, we have to die, fine, but, you know. I for one would like to know what I’m dying for first. And I would also like to know what _Ahsoka Tano_ , hero of the Galactic Civil War, wants with three-hundred units of illegal spice?”

Tano’s eyes widened. They were blue, Poe noticed—very pretty. She appeared genuinely shocked. “You think you’re moving _spice_?”

***

They did indeed think they were moving spice. Quality product mined in remote systems throughout the Outer Rim and taken to Kijimi where it would be resold to wholesalers at a markup of 5000% or more. Two or three more jobs like this one, and the Spice Runners figured they’d have enough credits to retire in luxury. Zorii, for one, couldn’t wait. And though she’d never said so aloud, and had certainly never _offered_ , Poe suspected she wanted him to join her at whatever paradise planet she ended up choosing.

But they weren’t moving spice, as it turned out. Their contact had tricked them. _Used_ them.

The Kijimi Spice Runners were moving child _slaves_. Three-hundred of them, to be precise. Well, actually, the precise technical term for what these children were was “debt-collateral indentured servants.” That, as far as Poe was concerned, was just a fancy jargon for something that was fundamentally, morally unconscionable.

Tano evidently thought so too. “We haven’t been able to identify the source. We suspect they’re under protection from recidivist elements in the Senate, which is why it’s been so difficult. Disrupting the distribution networks is about the most we can do at present,” she explained.

“I thought the New Republic outlawed slavery!” Poe protested.

“It’s not that simple.” Tano sighed. Togruta aged differently than humans; if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought she was his age. The expression of sadness on her face, though, the weariness—that made her look her years, which were, what? Fifty-something? Sixty? Maybe? Poe had never been good at that kind of math. “There are lots of legal loopholes and lots more dark corners where illegality is allowed to flourish.” She looked at Poe pointedly. _Spice runner_? her eyes seemed to say _. Really? Is that really the best use of your talents?_ “There’s still so much yet to be done for freedom throughout the galaxy.”

In the end, hard though it was, Poe had to admit that Tano was right. He _was_ wasting his talents. He could be doing more important things—better things—elsewhere.

“I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep on only living for myself and some fantasy future where I don’t have to worry about the bad things going on in the present. Now that I know, I can’t just forget again,” Poe said to Zorii. He just wished he could forget the angry, bitter things she said to him in response.

They freed the slaves over Zorii’s protests, and when Tano left to ferry the liberated slaves to safety, Poe left with her.

“All right. Show me how I can make a difference,” Poe said to Tano.

She did just that…and she showed him some very interesting things to be done in the shipboard sleeping berth as well. That was nothing short of a beautiful experience. Revelatory.

 _Always_ meet your heroes, Poe decided.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Posted to the exchange on January 30, 2020.


End file.
